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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776784">Trial by Fire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata'>Tabata</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Leoverse [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Glee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Kid Fic, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:00:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo has always taken care of the twins together with Blaine. The very few times his husband wasn't available for whatever reason, Timmy was there to give him a hand with his siblings. This is going to be the very first time Leo is completely alone with them, therefore he's petrified.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blaine Anderson/Original Male Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Leoverse [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trial by Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>WARNING:</b> This story is a <b>spin-off</b> sequel for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that, despite not being properly set after BHS (but that's only because BHS is probably never going to have a proper ending and we'll keep talking about these people forever), it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.</p>
<p>Written for this week's COW-T #10 Mission #1 on prompt "Newborn")</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Friday: Night</b>
</p>
<p>Dottie's request comes on a Friday night, while they are comfortably settled in the living room, watching a silly movie from the streaming selection, for the first time in something like two months. The twins, usually a little cranky at this time of the day, tonight are babbling peacefully in their baby carriers, one next to Leo and the other next to Blaine, leaving their fathers free to sit right in the middle of the couch, slumping over each other, exhausted but quite happy. Being able to spend a quiet night in without being covered in baby vomit, baby poop, or having to try and calm down two hysteric newborns screaming in their ears is a milestone they're really proud to have reached.</p>
<p>Blaine is two months in a six-month leave from the scenes he decided to take to care for the twins. It was a dangerous choice on his part because he's an actor and he's not even exactly a spring chicken anymore. The musical theater world is quick to forget you if you don't show your face around enough. Plus, this is not even the first time he does something like this as he stopped working for an entire year to take care of Leo a few years ago.</p>
<p>Dottie was not exactly happy to know he was going to go on a break again, but she let him because she trusts him. She has been working with Blaine for more than twenty-five years. She knows him very well, she knows the way he works and what he can do, she's even aware of his complicated family dynamics. She doesn't need to be obnoxious with him, to breath down his neck every day of every week to make sure he does what he's supposed to do the same way Mark does with Leo.</p>
<p>So, if she resolves to call on a Friday night after dinner it's because she has no other choice. Her request is one she can't avoid making and one Blaine can't avoid accepting, one of those do-it-or-your-career-is-over type of thing. Even Leo can understand that.</p>
<p>There's an English producer, a Matthew Barlow Leo has never heard of, who's passing by New York over the weekend and has expressed the wish to meet with Blaine, for whom he might have quite an ambitious project in mind. Aside from the fact that a big job would be a good thing, Dottie said this Barlow is one of those guys who think so highly of themselves that they take any refusal as a personal offense – especially if said refusal is made on the basis of having to change diapers. Barlow is a big name in London, he could easily cut Blaine off the European market in retaliation. There's no point in taking such a risk on account of a seven-hour flight and a single night away.</p>
<p>Obviously Blaine says yes and, a second after hanging up the phone, he's already planning everything. “If I take the first flight tomorrow morning, I'll be in New York in time to have dinner with Barlow. Then I'll take a late flight back and I'll be here on Sunday early morning,” he says, turning to Leo with his business face on. No doubt the little gears in his head are already spinning, deciding which one of his suits is better to bring along for the important dinner, if he should rent a car with the flight tickets or if he should just move around New York in a taxi, if he'll need a hotel room to rest awhile before his flight back and so on.</p>
<p>Leo nods, twisting the hem of his shirt nervously. “Don't worry, I can manage.”</p>
<p>This is not a thing he actually believes – there are very few things he can really <i>manage</i> alone and none of them is actually dealing with the twins – but years of therapy have taught him that saying he can do something, even if he's not sure he can, helps him actually do the thing.</p>
<p>'Fake it 'till you make it,” Dr. Williams had told him once. 'How do you think I got my degree in psychology?' Leo had laughed, before taking one of the cookies she always offered him. The aphorism has stuck with him through the years and he always tries his best to live by it now.</p>
<p>Blaine knows him too well, though. So, he stops thinking about a trip he has approximately two hours to plan and he grabs his husband by his shoulders. “I know you're scared, kid. But if you think about it, it's less than 24 hours. I'll be back before you know it,” he says, offering him an encouraging smile. “Besides, I'll leave you all the instructions you need and you can always text me. I know you can do it.”</p>
<p>When they found out they were going to have two babies and not one, Leo panicked badly. The unwanted surprise, the fear and the usual feeling of impending doom – the idea so deeply rooted in him that things going too well must be headed towards disaster – sent his brain into overload, and for the first three weeks of the twins' lives he categorically refused to deal with them. </p>
<p>Blaine took upon himself the task of caring for two newborns, giving Leo the space and the time he needed to adjust to the situation. Blaine knew his husband was going to step up to this new responsibility sooner or later, which ultimately happened. Seemingly overnight, Leo realized this was not the end of the world, that he could do it with a little help, and he started to change nappies and bottle-feeding the twins as if the past few weeks had never happened.</p>
<p>They have never talked about it, they don't need to.</p>
<p>Still, Leo has always taken care of the twins together with Blaine. The very few times his husband wasn't available for whatever reason, Timmy was there to give him a hand with his siblings. This is going to be the very first time Leo is completely alone with them, and it's only natural for him to be petrified.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*</p>
</div><p>
  <b>Saturday: Morning</b>
</p>
<p>Blaine wakes him up around eight.</p>
<p>By the time Leo actually gets out of bed, the twins have been changed and fed, and Blaine's suitcase is already waiting for him in the hall. “I wanted to give you a head start,” Blaine says with his good morning smile – that marvelous smile that can light up your entire day – giving him a kiss. “But I didn't make breakfast because that's definitely your department.”</p>
<p>Leo walks into the kitchen a little disoriented. He's very slow in the morning, while Blaine seems to move at double speed. “Alright, I'll fix up something,” Leo nods, checking the babies. Their carriers are both parked on the kitchen island, facing each other. They decided at the very beginning that they were not going to use a pram, as it was going to be unpractical in a two-stories house. Carrying them everywhere in their carriers is infinitely easier. “Did you have something to eat?”</p>
<p>“I'll grab something at the airport,” Blaine passes by him one more time, putting on his coat. He kisses him on his head and then proceeds to kiss Logan and Harper on their tiny noses. Logan frowns and then decides that the right course of action for such unexpected event is to put his whole fist in his mouth. That's pretty much his reaction to everything. Harper, on the other hand, chuckles and shakes all over, as she's in love with her father the way everybody in the world is. “Now, jelly beans, I except you to be good babies. Sleep regularly, poop reasonably and reduce farts to a minimum, as they are nasty and you're too cute to be tooting so much.”</p>
<p>The twins listen to Blaine, fascinated by his voice, their tiny hands closed into fists that they wave in the air like little revolutionaries cheering their leader. “I think that's their way to say that they'll try their very best,” Leo chuckles. “But changing diapers is a risky business. When you play the game of poop, you win or you die.”</p>
<p>Blaine hurries to kiss him again, giving him a very 1950's movie style dip in the process. “I love you when you quote vintage TV shows you've never seen a single episode of,” he says with inappropriate passion. “Oh! Right! Don't forget to stand to the side while you change Logan, because he doesn't have any control on his <i>personal weapon</i> and he will pee on you, my love. And these will be my last words before I go. Love you! Bye!”</p>
<p>There's another round of quick kisses and then he's gone. For a very long minute after the main door is closed, Leo just stands there contemplating the empty house and his two children looking expectantly at him. “We're going to get through this, right?” He asks. Logan tries to put his naked foot in his mouth.</p>
<p>
  <b>Saturday: Evening</b>
</p>
<p>Seven hours after Blaine's departure, seven hours he spent being unavailable on a plane, the house is still standing and the kids are alive. One golden star.</p>
<p>Leo has been peed, pooped and vomited upon more times than he dares to count and yet he still loves the twins and he hasn't made arrangements to sell them on Craigslist. This is at least two golden stars.</p>
<p>And if that wasn't enough, it's their dinnertime, they've been bathed and they're quiet in their carriers, waiting to be fed, like two tiny fat Buddhas in their yellow pajamas. “Five golden stars.” That's the first thing Leo says when Blaine video calls him as he waits for his luggage.</p>
<p>Blaine blinks a couple of times, confused. “What? Are you alright?” That's a legitimate question as Leo's hair is a sad and matted mess and he's wearing a shirt that shows the traces of five different vomiting moments. And he looks exhausted, but determined. That is what must be confusing Blaine. “Leo?”</p>
<p>“I deserve at least five golden stars,” Leo explains. “I changed diapers, prepared bottles, changed diapers again in a storm of poop and pee that would have put Hurricane Katrina to shame, and not once I had to call my shrink. We had two events of tragic tantrums and a colic. We've lost two pairs of micro shoes, don't ask me how, I have no idea, and dropped a pacifier in the garbage disposal. But, hey, better than one of the kids, right? So we went out and bought another. We are now intergalactic champions of Peekaboo and Harper said something like <i>ba ba da braaaap</i> which I'm quite sure were words of appreciation for me. Take that, father #1! Your reign is over.”</p>
<p>Blaine listens closely to Leo's random babbling – reading both his pride and his excitement between the lines – and then he bursts out laughing. “You're crazy, you know that, right?”</p>
<p>“That was widely confirmed years ago,” Leo nods, seriously. “I invite you to pay more attention. That said, we're all alive. Even your firstborn called from Italy just to tell me that he loves pigs and farming. I guess this means he's alright. Here's your babies.”</p>
<p>Leo turns the camera towards Logan and Harper that are now chewing on their bibs. “You're being very good, kiddo.” Blaine smiles, affectionately.</p>
<p>Leo makes a sudden terrified face. “Yes, thanks, but please come back. I miss you.” Then he chuckles, and Blaine's heart just melts. There's nothing better than to see him joking around a thing that terrified him to death just two months ago. It makes his job of helping him heal a lot easier knowing that it's working, that going through hell and back with him hasn't been pointless after all.</p>
<p>“A few more hours,” Blaine says. “You're doing great.”</p>
<p>And Leo can wait, this time, he knows he can.</p>
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